Letter: Why is it consultancies don’t preach what they practise? 

Glen O’Hara’s account of management consultancies reshaping British universities will surprise no one who has watched the same pattern unfold across the public sector (Opinion, April 4). 

I have directed a postgraduate programme for medical doctors for 10 years. Without exception, every cohort arrives with fresh stories of management consultancies descending on their NHS trust, generating disruption and paperwork, and then leaving. What would a generalist management consultant know about running an ICU or neurosurgery unit? There is a particular irony in 

the university context. Many institutions host business schools conducting world-class research in strategy, organisational behaviour and change management. These experts are rarely, if ever, consulted by senior university administrators. Research evidence accruing over 20 years consistently finds that organisations perform better when they are led and managed by individuals with genuine domain expertise — and this holds for universities, hospitals, schools, businesses and professional services. But the top consultancies know this already. 

Across McKinsey, Deloitte, PwC and KPMG, virtually every one of their global leader over the past three decades has been a career insider, rising through the partnership ranks over 25 to 40 years. These are, without exception, expert-led organisations. The question is not whether expert leadership works. The question is why institutions that embody it so thoroughly are retained to advise others against it. 

Professor Amanda Goodall, Bayes Business School, City St George’s, University of London, London EC1, UK